Yeah, it’s a cork oak. Click the pic for most of the story. What they leave out is the fact that the cork harvesters can’t use the rough outer layer the first time, so they really have to wait even more years to get a useful harvest.

I recognized a cork tree immediately. Interesting background info, Menyambal!
I see lots of cork products that look like they’re made from small chips of cork glued together. Might be from that first harvest of bark.

Enjoy it while you can – these trees will be gone soon with the acceptance of plastic corks. And so will the whole ecosystem they support – not least of which is pigs fattened on their acorns and then turned into air dried ham of a quality that might just make you believe in a higher being who certainly wouldn’t even consider considering pigs to be dirty…

Reminds me of the argument to use real trees, vines, flowers, berries, etc. for decorations, instead of buying plastic or silk, as it encourages farms of plants over production in factories.

There’s a little more to it than that, of course… but if the farming is done in a responsible way that allows the natural ecosystem to persist then I’m all for it. All those captive-bred Iberian lynx need somewhere to live, after all :)